From Index on Censorship


Friday, 10 January 2025
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Hello and happy new year, if it's not too late to say that. It's Jemimah here. Welcome to our redesigned newsletter. We've pared it back, to bring you the most important stories of the week in the simplest and most digestible way.

While a lot of the English-speaking world has been distracted by Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of changes at Meta this week, which he claims are motivated by "free speech" (more from us on that below), I wanted to direct you towards a different censorship story.

Tuesday marked the 10-year anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, in which 12 people were killed at its office in Paris, eight of them members of the satirical magazine's staff. The magazine is still going, though it now operates from a secure, secret location, and its editor lives under police protection. It's still courting controversy (it marked the 10th anniversary with a special edition lampooning God). But are we still Charlie?

Support for that iconic phrase – "Je suis Charlie" – which both expressed solidarity for those murdered and for free speech – has waned. In a survey ([link removed]) carried out in 2023 in France, only 58% of respondents agreed with it, down from 71% in 2016. More worrying still, a 2020 poll ([link removed]) revealed that 31% of people in France believed that those at Charlie Hebdo brought the attacks on themselves through "useless provocation".

The ambivalence towards the Charlie Hebdo massacre is a sobering gear-shift. Sadly, as I wrote ([link removed]) on Tuesday, it’s also not just a French story. In the UK, a teacher from Batley Grammar in Yorkshire is in hiding, four years on from showing his students a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed – and outrage here is hard to find. The teacher's case sits within a broader landscape of film screenings being cancelled and adverts being pulled, all because religious sensibilities have been given greater weight than free speech.

At least though in the UK, and in France, we do have legal provisions, albeit imperfect, to protect people who criticise religion. Not so for many other countries in the world. Please spare a thought for prominent Nigerian atheist Mubarak Bala ([link removed]) , who left prison this week only to go straight into a safe house out of fear for his life. Blasphemy is an offence under Nigeria's criminal law and in 2020 Bala was sentenced to 24 years in prison for a post he shared on Facebook, which was later reduced at appeal on the grounds that it was "excessive". So he's out of jail, but in this deeply religious country he’s not really free.

In 2015 we at Index were unequivocal in our support for the victims at Charlie Hebdo. Our position remains unchanged. Today we are still Charlie. And not just Charlie. We are the Batley teacher. We are Bala. We are anyone who wants to question, criticise or satirise religion.

Jemimah Steinfeld

CEO, Index on Censorship


** More from Index
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** Will Meta's changes to content moderation work? ([link removed])
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Are Mark Zuckerberg's recently announced plans to ditch existing fact-checking policies motivated by winning political gain?


** Elif Shafak on divisive language ([link removed])
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Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, the best-selling Turkish novelist wrote for Index

Bashar al-Assad has fallen: now I must continue writing ([link removed])

A formerly imprisoned, exiled journalist talks about his plans to return to Syria and resume reporting

What could Assad’s downfall mean for freedom of expression in Syria? ([link removed])

Syrian journalists have been subjected to free speech violations for decades


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Join Index on Wednesday 29 January at The Jago, Dalston for a night of music and poetry to launch our latest magazine issue, Unsung Heroes.

With performances by Uyghur musicians Rahima Mahmut and Shohret Nur, Belarusian poet Hanna Komar, and award-winning percussionist Sola Akingbola and the Eegun Rhapsodies.

Register now and get a free drink on the night.
REGISTER ([link removed])


** From elsewhere
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IRAN: Italy shows UK how to get a political prisoner released ([link removed]) [link removed]

SAUDI ARABIA: Which jailed dissidents have finally been set free ([link removed]) ?

TECH: Breaking encryption won’t make the internet safer for children ([link removed])

INDIA: Press groups call for investigation after journalist’s body found in septic tank ([link removed]) [link removed]

BELARUS: Opposition figure Babaryka seen after 700 days incommunicado ([link removed])

VENEZUELA: Maria Corina Machado arrested ahead of Maduro inauguration ([link removed])


** Flashback
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“We lost journalism in Russia” ([link removed])

by Andrei Aliaksandrau ([link removed])

Index on Censorship, volume 44, issue 3 ([link removed])

Our former colleague Andrei Aliaksandrau was detained four years ago this weekend by the Belarusian authorities for the alleged “organisation and preparation of actions, grossly violating public order, or active participation in them”. In 2022, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In this article from during his time with us in London in 2015, Andrei wrote about the evolution of censorship in Russia, from Soviet institutions to the modern blend of influence and pressure. Read the article here ([link removed]) .


** Support our work
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The world is becoming more authoritarian and our work supporting dissidents like Andrei Aliaksandrau and promoting freedom of expression in countries such as Syria, India and Belarus has never been more important.

By supporting Index on Censorship today, you can help us in our work with censored artists, jailed musicians, journalists under threat and dissidents facing torture and worse.

Please donate today ([link removed])

Images by Yann Pouliquen, Placidplace, Mark Frary (Je Suis Toujours Charlie); Gado Images/Alamy Stock Photo (Moscow newsstand)

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